The Case of the Platinum Blonde: A Ludovic Travers Mystery

by Christopher Bush

  “Jewellery is making big money at the moment,” Wharton remarked.

  “Very big,” Kenray told him. “But what you want to know is where I come in. I’m an antique dealer. My main shop and office is in Lower Regent Street and I’ve also a little place in Hatton Garden. Jewellery’s my particular line.” Again he permitted himself a gesture; this time another shrug of the shoulders and a deprecatory smile. “When I was a younger man I wrote a book about it. That’s why Sir William called me in, or was advised to call me in. I do a lot of work for Christie’s and Sotheby’s, by the way. And that’s why I was supposed to go on to his place at Pangley last night—to inspect the whole collection of jewellery, and give a rough valuation and advise as to sale. Eight o’clock I was supposed to be there—”

  “Just a minute,” broke in Wharton. “Why couldn’t you have seen the jewellery at Sir William Pelle’s office in Cunningham Street?”

  “Exactly,” said Kenray. “I told Sir William that. I said it would save time and trouble, and I was a busy man. But no. It had to be at his place and at eight o’clock.”

  “He didn’t even ask you to dinner?” asked Wharton with an attempt at humour.

  “As a matter of fact he didn’t,” Kenray said. “And another thing. I was absolutely horrified when I heard he was taking all that stuff down in an attaché-case, and I told him so.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘Good gad, sir, we’re living in England, aren’t we? And what do you think I am? A child or something?’”

  “Pure Poona, eh?”

  “Well, Sir William was rather like that,” Kenray said mildly enough. “A little man, and very fiery and peppery. Livery, perhaps I should have said.”

  “But it wasn’t your headache?”

  “It certainly wasn’t,” Kenray said. “I told him it was his affair and I’d be seeing him at about eight o’clock. And I did. That is, I went to the house and found the whole place in a hubbub. Sir William hadn’t arrived. He’d said he was coming on the usual four-five from town and then at about three-thirty or so he rang up to say he’d be taking the four-fifty. But he didn’t come on it, and he hadn’t arrived when I got there. I waited till ten o’clock and then the secretary and I went to the railway station—only five minutes’ walk—and saw the stationmaster and the ticket collector. Nobody remembered Sir William getting off a train. In fact, they said if he had got off he wouldn’t have been noticed. The collector didn’t know him and if he had he’d never have noticed him except by accident. People just come surging out of the doors by those early evening trains. Swarm out by the hundred.”

  “I know,” said Wharton, feelingly. “And what did you do then?”

  “Went back home,” Kenray said. “The secretary, so he told me this morning, got in touch with the Pangley police and they, I believe, got in touch with you.”

  Wharton heaved a sigh and then pursed his lips.

  “Just one little thing,” he said, and after what had apparently been due reflection. “Your own movements last night. You went home to Hurstham and then on to Pangley later?”

  “I didn’t,” Kenray told him promptly. “My eyes aren’t any too good, nor my heart either, for that matter.”

  I’d been wondering about that purple colouring of his and if he lifted his elbow, but that mention of a heart put me right.

  “What I mean is this,” he was going on. “I could have had a car from my own place to the station and another from Pangley station to Sir William’s place, but I was doing the job for nothing and I didn’t see why I should be out of pocket. As a matter of fact Sir William did arrange to have a taxi waiting for me. He walked always. It’s about five minutes, as I was telling you. One of these unspoilt country lanes his way.”

  “But what about that train he ’phoned he was coming by? The four-fifty? It would have been pitch-dark when he got to Pangley by that. What I mean is this. He had a taxi to meet you. Why didn’t he order one to meet himself? Or did he?”

  “Not so far as I know,” Kenray said. Then the dry smile came again. “He had the car for me because I insisted on it. He said the walk would do me good and I told him bluntly that I wasn’t giving it a chance.”

  Wharton simulated a chuckle.

  “Well,” he said, “it certainly looks as if he didn’t order any taxi to meet himself. But about you, Mr. Kenray. I gather your whole arrangements for the evening were disturbed.”

  “Not too much,” Kenray said, and with the same mildness. “I usually go home by the four-fifty, though if it’s a wet, dark night I make it the four-five. What I actually did was this. I had some arrears of work to clear off at the shop. My sister runs that, by the way. I got in at about five and I was a bit tired. Had the whole day at a sale and wasn’t feeling any too good. My sister had tea ready for me and then I had a little nap in the office. Then we had a bit of dinner at about half-past six and then my sister—she’s got eyes like a cat—went with me to Charing Cross where I caught the seven-twenty, as I’d arranged with Sir William.”

  “I get you,” Wharton said. “You had only the one journey instead of two, so to speak, and a very sensible arrangement too, if I may say so. But your sister. She travelled with you?”

  “Travelled?” said Kenray, rather perplexed.

  “Doesn’t she live at Hurstham with you?”

  “No, no, no,” Kenray told him. “She did for a time during the blitz but normally she lives at the shop. There’s a nice little flat above it. My man has a cubby-hole there too. Useful for fire-watching.”

  There didn’t seem anything else to ask or say and Wharton heaved another sigh.

  “Well, as I told the India Office this very morning, Mr. Kenray, there’s nothing we can do in addition to what’s being done. The whole machinery’s been set in motion and if he’s to be found, then you can take it from me that he’ll be found.” He leaned forward. “But strictly between ourselves. You’re a man of the world, like myself, and what passes between us is nobody’s business.”

  A pause for effect and he put his question.

  “Sir William couldn’t possibly have hopped it— skedaddled or whatever you like to call it—with that nice little collection of jewellery?”

  “Out of the question,” Kenray said bluntly.

  “But why?” insisted Wharton.

  “Well, he’d been an important public servant in India. The authorities wouldn’t have asked him to take over this particular branch of the Bengal Appeal Fund if they hadn’t had a pretty high regard for him.” Then he thought of something else. “Besides, where could he go to? Take myself. I go occasionally to the States, but it’s under strict Government licence and priority, and only because I’m selling stones and jewellery to bring dollars to the Treasury.”

  “I’d overlooked that,” Wharton told him. “But loss of memory. What about that?”

  “I couldn’t say. Certainly he was a very nervy man. I think I mentioned that before.”

  “Wealthy, was he?”

  “Hard to judge,” Kenray told him. “I’d say he had enough and no more. He’s got a nice little place at Pangley, but nothing out of the way. I gathered he’d been hard hit by the war.”

  “Who hasn’t?” asked Wharton feelingly. “Married, was he?”

  “A widower,” Kenray said. “One son, now out East. In the Indian Civil, I believe.”

  That seemed all, at least Wharton leaned well back in his chair. I thought he was getting to his feet to indicate that the interview was over, but suddenly he leaned forward again.

  “Just a couple of questions, Mr. Kenray, and I hope you won’t take offence. Just why should you, personally, who seem to be only indirectly involved, have decided to come to me?”

  Kenray made never a movement. There was such a silence in the room that, when he spoke, his voice sounded unnaturally loud.

  “One’s a personal reason, and I’d rather it wasn’t mentioned. My sister—stepsister, really—is a widow. A year or so ago her only son,
my nephew, was killed over Dieppe, and she contributed, anonymously, a rather valuable piece of jewellery to this Bengal Fund as a tribute to his memory. There was a proviso that the proceeds of its sale were to be devoted to something special in my nephew’s name.”

  “A valuable piece of jewellery, then?”

  “I think it would have made a thousand pounds,” Kenray said calmly. “My sister’s more than a knowledgeable woman. She picked it up years ago and was holding it for the boy’s wife—I mean, if and when he married.”

  “A fine young fellow, was he?”

  “They don’t make many like him,” Kenray told him quietly.

  “I’m sorry,” Wharton said lamely. “And you’re married yourself, Mr. Kenray?”

  “I’m a widower,” Kenray said. “My wife died a year ago. But about that second reason I had for coming here. I’d like to lay my cards on the table.”

  “Why not?” asked Wharton, and spread his palms in a generous gesture.

  “Well then,” went on Kenray. “Not only was I naturally anxious about this gift of my sister’s, but last night, when I got to thinking over things, I decided they didn’t look any too good for me. I had to look at everything from every angle. Frankly, what I had in mind was that Sir William might have been murdered for the sake of the jewellery.”

  “Yes?” said Wharton, and waited.

  “Well, from what I might call my end, I was the only one who knew he was going home last night with the jewellery in that attaché-case of his.”

  Wharton chuckled hugely.

  “But my dear sir! Suppose things are as bad as you thought, why in heaven’s name should a man of your standing be suspected of being implicated?”

  “Why not?” Kenray asked him bluntly. “Surely you’d have had to question everybody, however remotely concerned. And as far as I’m concerned, to put it very mildly, I have to spend the whole of to-day at Christie’s. It’s, an important sale of jewellery and I mustn’t miss it. I want to be there, not here being questioned by you. Very nicely questioned, I ought to say in fairness to yourself.”

  “Very generous of you,” Wharton told him, but I could tell from his tone that Kenray’s frankness had been very much of a facer. “Another five minutes, Mr. Kenray, and you can be on your way. And I’m very grateful that you came. But about no one knowing from your end. This stepsister of yours. Did you mention anything to her?”

  “She knew practically everything,” Kenray said, and, to me, very surprisingly. “She’s my partner in the business and, to tell the truth, there’s branches of it she knows more about than I do.”

  “Exactly. But what did you tell her?”

  “Well, she knew I’d been called in as adviser and she knew, of course, that I was going to Pangley to see Sir William last night. But she didn’t necessarily know the essential thing—that he was bringing all that stuff along in his attaché-case.”

  “Ah!” said Wharton. “That clears that then. But what about Sir William’s end. Garrulous, was he?”

  “Well . . . yes,” admitted Kenray dryly.

  “To whom would he be likely to talk? At his office, for instance?”

  And then, before Kenray could reply, the buzzer went.

  Published by Dean Street Press 2018

  Copyright © 1944 Christopher Bush

  Introduction copyright © 2018 Curtis Evans

  All Rights Reserved

  The right of Christopher Bush to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by his estate in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in 1944 by Cassell & Co.

  Cover by DSP

  ISBN 978 1 912574 22 3

  www.deanstreetpress.co.uk